Set Fire to the Rain
by Dean Ocean
Summary: How Charles and Erik evolved from friends to oh so much more. Set some time while they were mucking about on the road recruiting mutants.


**SET FIRE TO THE RAIN:**

"How many is that now?" Charles asked, undoing the center button on his jacket as he leaned near the doorway.

"More than I ever believed would possibly be out there." Erik paused holding the key to the room in his hand. His eyes staring at nothing in particular as the chain declaring the room number swung back and forth like a metronome. "Charles…this has been…eye opening."

Charles smiled at his friend, in that understated way he had. There was compassion in his every move, his hand clapping onto Erik's much taller shoulder. "It's amazing isn't it, my friend? Imagine the lives we can change, together."

Erik shoved the key into the lock. He paused before twisting it, and pulled it back out. A single wave of his hand and the door's lock gave way, sliding into place as smoothly as if the key had been used. He pocketed the key in the pocket of his leather blazer as he opened the door, his own smile spreading wide across his face: self satisfied.

"So this is what working for the government gets you?" Charles stood in the doorway to the room, both arms braced on either side. He leaned part way in, but didn't step a foot with in the room, keeping the respect of Erik's privacy implied.

"Not all of us are named Xavier." Erik said, looking around the room himself. He didn't have much in the way of luggage, and it sat on the bed where he had dropped it that morning when he had first checked. From the paisley printed bedspread to the shag carpet it was the same room he'd been sleeping in for several weeks now. Same room, different city.

Charles didn't bother to extend the invitation to pay for a room in a better hotel, perhaps one with a lift instead of just stairs, or at least a carpet that pretended to be clean, he had given up after the first couple of tries. It was pride, foolish pride, but pride none the less for Erik to refuse Charles's so called charity. Just as Charles pretended the dingy room with bad lighting and questionable wall-art was Erik's sovereign territory and could not be entered with out permission.

"Have a drink with me?" Erik said as he opened up his suitcase and wrestled out a long neck bottle of something amber colored.

The invitation extended, Charles entered the room, sliding his blazer from his arms. He folded it over the back of a chair that looked like it was probably about as comfortable as it cost: not much. He made no remarks as such, but the soft smirk on his face said enough.

"Glad my accommodations amuse you. If the government is going to pay for me to stay some where I may as well use it." Erik took the only glass in the room from near the wash basin, holding it with one hand and the bottle with the other. "We'll have to share."

"Understood." Charles said, dropping his weight to the edge of a single queen sized bed. The mattress felt simultaneously soft and firm at once, so much so Charles bounced on it a couple of times to test it's durability. The frame gave irritated squeaks at his movement. Charles merely looked at Erik, one brow raised a little higher than the other.

"I'm sleeping here for one night and moving on in the morning. It doesn't have to the be the Waldorf to get the job done. Not as if I am living here." Though Charles was the telepath, some days it was as if Erik could read his mind.

Charles held up his hands defensively, shaking his head. "I said nothing."

"I bet." Erik retorted. He poured the dark whiskey labeled with age and prestige into the glass and offered it to Charles first.

Charles took it and took a slow sip, gladly welcoming the burn and sense of satisfaction as it settled. Though their journey was proving a success beyond expectation, even to his calculated standards, it was tiring. And though Erik's company was the only company he could imagine enduring for such long stretches of prolonged, comfortable silence, the things that went unsaid were more draining than those that did. He offered the glass back to his friend.

"Fancy a game of chess?" Charles offered.

"We haven't a board." Erik took a larger drink than Charles, and didn't wince as the fire-branded whiskey burned its way down his throat. The discomfort made the release of his breath and the sensation of alcohol filling his veins much sweeter. A little pain, a little sacrifice for a large release.

"Cards then." Charles leaned back on one hand, watching his friend with a practiced expression.

"Alright." Erik finished off the whiskey in the glass, and poured another few fingers as Charles fished a deck of cards from a pocket. "No cheating."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Charles shuffled the cards with a practiced ease. He had developed a reputation as a killer poker player during his school days. And while he had cheated to earn that reputation, mostly to impress girls, he did have something of a gift for the game. Intuition was not the same as mutation: or so he told himself.

"Famous last words." Erik chided as he held the glass waiting patiently for Charles to be ready for it, sipping on it a little to ease some of his own nervous tension. Close quarters always unsettled him and comforted him with Charles. Some where between that sensation of belonging with the notion that this was the sort of thing always torn away from him.

But none of that mattered as Charles dealt the cards. They sat together on the bed playing a game that failed to distract them as well as chess would have. But it provided ample time for them to share the bottle and talk. And by the time the clock told them midnight had come and gone 30 minutes before, both had abandoned fashion and proper for the comfort of open collars and untucked tails. Shoes were piled mutually on the floor. Erik's long legs were stretched before him, with his back against the headboard, and Charles facing him with legs crossed and cards in hand.

"You've won the last seven games. Yet I win this hand. Certain you didn't throw it?" There was a gentle laughter under Erik's voice, something rolling out of his chest with out much thought.

"I might have a little." Charles admitted as he gathered the cards into his hand and folded them over one another.

"Charles!"

"You said no cheating! You put no qualifiers on sparing your fragile ego." There was laughter open in his eyes, warm and inviting, his face flushed with alcohol.

Erik moved, grabbing Charles by the open collar of his shirt. He pulled Charles forward, easily moving the smaller man who's balance wasn't capable of resisting. Charles pitched forward, both hands coming to keep him from crashing head long into Erik's lap. Erik stared down at his friend, a hotness rising from him for a moment before a broad grin spread his mouth and showed a glimpse of his teeth. "You think my ego is fragile?"

Charles said nothing, which for Charles often said much more. He was quiet as he met his friend's eyes. Watching with that studious intensity he could master previously only for the importance of his work, never another human being. His own smile was not broad, but subtle in one corner of his mouth and not the other. "I think we've both had too much to drink."

On cue the empty bottle of whiskey rolled off the edge of the bed and thumped heavily down on the floor. The spell broken Erik released Charles, who resumed his position he had previously occupied.

"You might be right, my friend. It is late and we have an early plane in the morning." Erik swept a hand through slicked back hair and swung coltish legs over the side of the bed.

Charles rose from the bed himself. Though as his knees straightened the alcohol rushed his head and he swooned. Stumbling forward two steps he was caught by Erik's sudden over powering arms, wrapped around his waist and keeping him from discovering just how dirty the carpet really was.

"Perhaps you should stay here, you're in no condition to escort yourself home much less give directions to a taxi." Erik gently straightened Charles on his feet and backed him towards the bed. It was easier than he would have believed to set Charles back on the edge of the bed, safely off his drunken toes.

"Perhaps you are right." There was no protest. "How can you be so …steady?"

"I wasn't the one who insisted on taking a shot after every hand he won." Erik reminded Charles as he stepped away from him, extracting his hands from the feel of the other man.

"Well good thing, you wouldn't have had anything to drink at all if we had played that way." Charles with out help or restraint from Erik dropped his body back, flopping out on the bed with his hair suddenly askew. In that moment Charles looked very young, and something else Erik couldn't quite put his finger on. "You're a dreadful poker player, Erik."

"I am going to wash up, feel free to make yourself at home." Erik abandoned Charles to the bed as he slipped into the cramped bathroom.

The bathroom was no better than the room in terms of taste and cleanliness. But it was clean compared to some of the places Erik had known, and when he turned on the water it came out with suitable pressure. He thought for half a moment about a cool shower, something to cool his mind, to sooth the heat in his body and the flush of the liquor in his belly. In the end he turned the hot water to a point it nearly burned when he stepped into it. The warmth washed away the stiffness from his shoulders, but little else.

He opened the bathroom door with the towel wrapped around him. He was unable to leave the space, though steam escaped freely around him, as Charles blocked his path. Charles had one hand braced against the door jam, and the other resting in a way that was forced-casual on his hip.

"Hot shower." Charles said.

"You want to take one?" Erik didn't move from the space he stood, he held his ground against Charles's unnerving stare. He felt no intrusion from the other man's mind, but knew better than to believe he was alone inside his own head. _What all did you hear?_

The thought of Charles stalking around in his mind, observing and witnessing thoughts never meant to be viewed by another made Erik feel ill. His stomach knotted against its self, and if he had had any sense he would have stepped away from the smaller man and vomited in the toilet, washing it off as the empty mistakes of drinking. But Erik had no sense, only a mingled feeling of dread and curiosity.

_Enough_. Charles answered him.

_You're free to leave, I will understand_.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Charles said aloud and grabbed Erik by the neck. There was strength in what he did that Erik had only felt once before: the kiss over powering every sense he had till touch was all that mattered. The strength that suddenly radiated from Charles washed away the taste of whiskey on his tongue, and all hesitation.

When they came up for air, Erik spoke first, staring into the eyes of his first and truthfully his only friend on this plane. "I thought I was alone…"

Charles smiled at him, in a way that had nothing to do with the world they were facing, or the difference they were making. It had everything to do with joy and a memory shared with words that introduced them to one another. "You're not alone, Erik, You're—"

He never finished. Erik's mouth was hot, heavy and pressed so tightly Charles's breath caught in his throat. The words were swallowed as he sank against the other man, letting sensation have it's way with him. And the sensation was incredible; unlike any he had ever felt. It was different than he might have imagined it, rougher. The taste of Erik running through his head like an out of control freight train that joined forces with a momentum he didn't recall starting.

Erik's hands were pulling on buttons of an expensive shirt, frustration as each digit tried to move faster than the alcohol still fueling inhibition would allow. Angrily he tore at them, twisting the fabric till it gave and buttons skittered along the slick surface of a polyester bedspread. Charles's pale skin was hotter to the touch than the shower had been, burning his fingers as they spread over a body he expected to be a different condition. He had thought Charles would some how be softer, but what lay beneath fine fabrics and designer labels was a body firm and strong. And for the first time Erik was aware of the muscle Charles had on him that had nothing to do with the power in a keen and telepathic mind.

_Bed_. The word wasn't said allowed, but Erik heard it just the same. He felt the insistence in it, but no push or pull in any one direction a suggestion with out the question mark.

Charles moved backwards, and Erik was forced to move forward to keep the contact so close. And close it stayed, mouths grappling with one another like when Charles was a schoolboy pushing his luck with a co-ed beneath the bleachers of a rival school's sport's field. Erik pulled his shirt from his shoulders, exposing them to air that felt chilly compared to the heat circulating between them. Charles flung it from his arms, waving them awkwardly to cast the last cuff from his wrist and the shirt fell to the floor.

It took Erik no time to continue down to Charles's pants as the shirt was removed. There was a belt to tug lose with fine expensive Italian leather and tipped in metal. Metal Erik's hands didn't need to touch to pull through the bucket and push aside, the buttons of the fly following quickly after. He did not use his power to continue pushing the pants away from Charles's hips, rather he did that with his hands: fingers running along the smooth skin and simply hooking beneath the hem of Charles's trousers. They slipped free with out protest and with them went the under garments the opposite man wore.

Some where in the middle of it Erik's towel had been abandoned and naked they reached the bed., and together they fell into it. The sheen on the paisley leaving a cool feeling into Charles's skin, contrasting with the heat that came from Erik's weight atop of him. It was only a moment their mouths touching even as they caught their breath; a single moment to pause, to give the other retreat as a full-fledged option.

Erik started them up again, a single touch of his hand on Charles's shoulder, a gesture he had done a thousand times but now carried so much more weight then it had before. He wondered briefly if it would crush them both, but the world spun away from him. He wasn't aware his body was moving, rotating and twisting with out permission. And suddenly his back felt the cool of the bed cloth beneath his shoulder's and the heat of Charles's atop him. Erik had never felt something call to him so strongly before, even the metal that sang it's Siren's song all around him could not compete. The world was drowned out, sunk beneath the waves of Charles Xavier.

And just like that, a single breath taken in unison they set fire to the entire world. Each touch burned, each silent call for more turned to ash the friendship they thought they understood. In its place was built something living, breathing and calling out for strength only the other could provide. The power they shared in creating had nothing to do with being mutants. In a dimly lit hotel room with dirty shag carpet Charles and Erik made love.


End file.
